17 Jun 2007 Complete List of Microstock Agencies

For as long as I’ve been observing the microstock market there’s always been a lot of microstock agencies. New sites open all the time while others close or just fade away. This is a maintained list of ‘serious’ microstock agencies.

For the purpose of this list I’m defining a ‘microstock agency’ as:

Crowdsourced (accepting submissions from the public)

Selling photos online only

Selling photos at micropayment prices

Important – Remember, this is the Internet, so be careful about where you supply your personal information and images. I have not listed agencies where I know of dishonest activity, but I haven’t checked them all.

The quantity of agencies in this list (32 active) demonstrates nothing if not that a lot of people believe there’s money to be made running a microstock agency. I don’t expect many of these agencies are profitable themselves, and it’s even less likely that many of them are profitable for contributors.

Are there any that I’ve missed? Add them in the comments and I’ll include them in the list.

Jifarnis Gwibson

I see that you’re making pretty good money off of Dreamstime. I signed up with all the microstock co. that you were making decent money off of–thanks for the tip.

However, Dreamstime doesn’t seem to have a ftp bulk upload system. Also, I haven’t found out a way to see my files pending review. Am I missing something?

Anyhow, thanks for putting up this website. I wish I had seen it 3 years ago when the microstock industry just started taking off. But, never too late to get started, right? It just seems that most of the good ideas have already been taken by amateurs who have greatly increased their skills, while I’m just a daft amateur without many ideas.

Slobodan Rickis

Karin

Might want to remove Galastock until they can prove they aren’t shady. Earlier this year one of their employees was caught selling photos submitted to GS at other micros. TalkMicro and Microstock Group both have threads where you can read up on the incident.

Frank

Thanks Frank, I’ve had a good look at Clustershot and don’t consider them a “microstock agency” with their current model. Additionally, without solid legal agreements or a review process to ensure buyers don’t get into trouble, I don’t think it’s safe to label them as such.

Hi Peter, Clipdealer is a video agency and so far I haven’t been adding those that don’t take photos directly. PhotoXpress is part of Fotolia, and not a microstock agency that people can submit to directly.

John C

Hi, my experience with low profit microstocks is not really good. Seems there is no sense to spend my time on them. There are just 7 Agencies that I work with, they are described in my blog. However, selling media is my hobby, so maybe serious stockers have better experience?